Deus ex Machina
by nanniships
Summary: a tumblr nudge about Lucien being involved in Jean's thespian career led to this. Perhaps a disturbing mystery can at least get Jean the lead role she's deserved for so long.
1. Chapter 1

Deus ex Machina

Although his sense of self preservation was not as finely honed as it once had been, Dr. Blake was no fool. Well...not all of the time. And when the arrival of his housekeeper, home at last from the church theatrical committee meeting, was marked by the slamming of the front door hard enough to rattles the pane and the solid twack of a script book slamming onto the kitchen table…

Suffice it to say, he was smart enough to knock back what was left of the whiskey in his glass and flip to the next page of his newspaper. While he couldn't keep his eyes from drifting over towards the kitchen, where sounds of a tea kettle being vigorously filled echoed, he was damned if he was going to make an appearance before whatever was eating Jean Beezley had run its course.

She'd be in soon enough and he'd get an ear wag. Casting an another quick glance towards the kitchen, wincing at the slam of a cupboard, he quickly made sure there was sufficient sherry left in the decanter – just in case.

"Would you care for a cuppa?" she called from kitchen. Her tone of voice implied that the question was a polite formality at best rather than a sincere offer.

"Ah...no, I don't think so. Thanks anyway," he replied, pouring himself another shot.

Folding the paper up and setting it to one side occupied his time until Jean finally made an appearance. Although her expression appeared calm, she gripped her tea cup as if she was preparing to hurl it into the back garden. The script book was in her other hand, tapping lightly against her leg.

"Why don't you join me, Jean," he offered, keeping a wary eye on her cup while wondering if that scriptbook was going to leave bruises on her thigh. He wouldn't be averse to helping ice it.

She sat in the chair across from him with a heavy sigh. He admired the graceful cross of her ankles for a moment, then looked at her expectantly.

"How was the meeting? Did you decide on a spring production?"

"We certainly did," she replied with an eyeroll. She extended the script book towards him and he accepted it gingerly.

"Pygmalion?" he mused, trying to place it. "George Bernard Shaw…a bit light on the drama for this group, isn't it?"

"We decided last year that we'd like to try for lighter fare for a change," she replied. "Well, _Susan_ decided, anyway, and we followed her lead, of course."

Lucien felt the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smirk, which he tried unsuccessfully to hide from Jean. She glared at him for a moment before tossing her head and lifting her cup to her lips.

"I wonder who told her she was funny," he muttered, grinning when Jean sputtered into her tea.

"Doubt it was Patrick," she replied dryly. "At any go, we'll find out, won't we. She's eyeing Eliza Doolittle like it already belongs to her."

"Susan Tyneman trying on a cockney accent," he mused. "That'll be worth the price of admission right there."

Jean tried unsuccessfully to stifle a bark of laughter, then shook her head with a resigned smile.

"Auditions are Tuesday. I guess I'd better decide which supporting role I'm going for."

"Well, whatever you do, I'm sure it'll be loverly."

The look she threw him - half pleased, half exasperated - was worth the price of admission as well.

* * *

"Lucien! It's the Superintendent!"

"Right..right..." he muttered as she nearly threw the phone at him in her haste to return to preparing for play rehearsal. He indulged in a quick eyeball of her retreating figure as she attempted to secure an earring while juggling her script book under her arm. Her dedication to the show in spite of the fact that she had been given the role of Mrs. Pearce - the bloody housekeeper - baffled and impressed him by turns.

"I'm assuming there's an insalubrious corpse somewhere out there, Matthew?"

"Hello to you too, Blake," the Chief Superintendent barked irritably. "Would I be bothering with you if there wasn't?"

"Probably not," Blake replied cheerfully. "Any details?"

"You'll love this. There is a dead body in the cellar of the Tyneman's bloody manor."

"You don't say?"

"And if the Tyneman's butler is to be believed, there's every indication that the dead woman was up to no good," Matthew added.

"I'm not surp- dead _woman_? You did say 'dead woman' didn't you?"

"I did," Matthew replied grimly. "It's not pretty, Blake."

"It never is," Blake replied quietly. "I'll be on my way, then."

"And try not to set Patrick Tyneman's bloody back up the minute you get here."

"Why do you ask the impossible of me, Matthew?"

"Hop it, Blake!" Matthew snapped, hanging up the line. He stared at the phone in his hand in bemusement for a moment.

"You're called out, I suppose?" Jean asked as she shrugged into her coat.

"It would appear so," he replied absently, his mind already in the basement of the Tyneman's house. He caught a glimpse of disappointment on her face as she turned away to grab her handbag. "I could drop you on the way, if you'd like."

"Could you? That would be wonderful. I'm sure I can get a ride home."

Lucien frowned briefly at the thought of the director bringing Jean home at the end of rehearsal, then hurried to grab his own outerwear and open the door for his housekeeper.

* * *

Lucien arrived to a scene of utter chaos. While police officers went about their business as efficiently as they could considering the broad grins on their faces, the Police Superintendent was trying desperately to prevent Susan Tyneman from attacking her husband with a vase. Blake was no judge of decorative accents, but he'd wager that vase was worth more than his yearly stipend from the Ballarat Police Force. Patrick, while trying to avoid the wrath of his wife, was bellowing that he had absolutely no idea who the dead woman in the cellar was, and he most certainly hadn't been sleeping with her.

"What are the odds he's telling the truth?" Blake muttered to Sgt. Charlie Davis as he slipped past the altercation to descend towards the cellar.

"I'm not a gambling man, Doc." Charlie with a roll of his eyes and shone his torch down the stairs.

"Electricity not working?" Balke asked as he descended cautiously. The stairs underfoot were coated in a sticky substance. "What's this?

"Creosote," Charlie replied. The Tynemans were having the stairs gritted to prevent the maid from falling when she took the laundry down. I guess they lost one last month to a broken collar bone."

"Bloody kind of them..." Blake trailed off when the torch light hit the body of a young woman sprawled out on the dirt floor of the cellar. He squinted at the shadow emerging from her spine until it resolved into a steel breaker bar.

He and Charlie stood in silence for a moment before Lucien let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. As he crouched down to get a better look at the two feet of steel sticking out of her back, he noticed a wire trialing from her hand into the darkness.

"Play your light over there, Charlie," he ordered.

As Charlie did so, their eyes followed the wire until it disappeared into a nondescript red box with a toggle switch on the side and a timer face on the top. Blake drew in a quick breath.

"What's that?" Charlie murmured to himself, beginning to walk closer to the box. He was abruptly tackled from behind. "Doc! What the bloody hell is wrong with you?"

Not bothering to answer the outraged sergeant, Blake collared him and dragged him towards the stairs.

"Get everyone out of here!" he bellowed up the stairs as loudly as he could. Pushing a reluctant, sputtering Charlie ahead of him, they stumbled up the dark, sticky stairs as quickly as they could.

"What are you on about?" Matthew demanded as they burst into the kitchen. Patrick Tyneman glared furiously at Blake as he sprawled on the floor. He quickly levered himself to his feet.

"Get a demo team out here, Matthew," he ordered grimly. "She wired to a bloody detonator of some sort."

A flash of fear crossed Matthew's face, but he immediately began ordering everyone to evacuate.

"What d'you mean, Blake? How would you know if there was a bomb? You _claim_ to be a doctor," Patrick snarled.

"I've seen them before, Patrick, but if you'd like to go down and check, be my bloody guest."

Mr. Tyneman declined the offer and evacuated as ordered, but not without a great deal of grumbling. It was going to be a long night for all concerned.

* * *

Chief Superintendent Matthew Lawson scrubbed his face with his hands and heaved a long sigh. The head of the demo team held out the detonator with a bemused expression.

"So, you're telling me there's no way this would have gone off? No way at all?"

"Not like this. It's for plastique and the only explosives down there in that bag were a few sticks of old dynamite, probably cadged from an abandoned mine site. They were sweating up a storm and might have gone pop, but certainly wouldn't have taken out the house, even if it had been hooked up proper to the detonator. Complete amateur attempt, if that what is was."

Lucien cringed slightly at the jaundiced glare his old friend cast his way.

"Sorry to have brought you out for this," the Chief Superintendent apologized to the demolitions team.

"No worries," the team leader replied cheerfully. "Better safe than sorry, eh? It had all the looks of a boomer, it just never would have gone off."

With that, hands were shaken all around and the officers of the Ballarat Police were left with a dead woman lying in the cellar with three foot of steel bar thrust through her torso. As one, they turned to look at the police surgeon.

"Well," he said brightly, "best get on with it. C'mon, Charlie, let's figure out how to get that poor, young woman out of the cellar."

"Yes, why don't you do that, Blake," Matthew said, shaking his head and turning to leave. Lucien grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

"You've got the Tynemans down at the station?"

"Where else?"

"We've still got a case of foul play here," he began. Matthew gave him a skeptical look. "Breaker bars don't spring naturally from the bodies of young women, Matthew. And young women no one has ever seen before don't typically show up dead sporting a bag full of explosives in a cellar."

"Yeah...about that..."

"Oh get off it! If you'd seen the bloody wire and box in the torchlight next to a speared corpse, you'd have gotten out sharpish too."

"Fair enough," Matthew admitted. "What's your point about the Tynemans?"

"Someone wanted to blow them up; they just didn't know how to go about it. We've got to figure it out before they can settle back in." Looking around to make sure no one was listening, Lucien lowered his voice. "It would be easier all around if they were off in, well, protective custody somewhere."

"You mean, like Melbourne?"

"I was thinking Perth," Lucien replied dryly, "but Melbourne would do, if they stay away until we get this sorted."

"That could take weeks, Blake!"

"Why, yes. Yes it could."

Matthew just shook his head in exasperation as Lucien winked at him.

"Alright then," he said as he kneeled next to the body, the Kleig lights they'd hauled down for the demo team lighting up the Tyneman's cellar like mid-day. "What are we going to do with you?"

* * *

"What in heaven's name is all over your suit?!"

Lucien winced and rubbed the back of his head. Jean stalked into the sitting room, holding his creosote covered suit out in front of her and shook them in his general direction. The case of the speared co-ed hadn't left him with a lot of time on his hands and he'd not had time to ditch the evidence from the bottom of his wardrobe.

"It's creosote," he said wearily.

"This will _never_ come out," she informed him indignantly. "If you're going to be crawling about on railway ties at your crime scenes, perhaps you ought to wear some dungarees!"

He nodded in agreement and apologized profusely, but Jean was not best pleased to have to throw out an expensive suit. And she didn't seem to believe his sincere promises to be more careful in future.

Convincing the Tynemans to go to Melbourne for their safety and the opportunity to work on their marriage had been easier than dealing with his housekeeper as she coped with taking on the lead role in the spring production while keeping up with the house as he and Charlie were in and out at all hours.

However, his suggestion that maybe Susan, at least, might be able to return under police protection for rehearsals hadn't gone over well.

Not well at all.

"Ah well," he said to himself as he watched Jean throw his second best suit into the bin while she whispered her lines to herself, "the show must go on, after all."

Hopefully they'd get this mystery cleared up before opening night. He'd already reserved a ticket.


	2. Chapter 2

Pursued by a Bear

"I'm getting nowhere with this," Dr. Blake groused, glaring at the eggs sitting on his plate.

"It's early days yet," Jean said reassuringly. "And if you're not going to interrogate those eggs, you'd best eat them before they get cold."

Ignoring Charlie Davis' quiet snicker, Lucien began shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, muttering to himself the whole time.

"No ID on the body...well, we didn't expect that. No response to the pictures published all over Victoria. Just a well fed, healthy female between the ages of 19 and 25 who would be alive and probably working or in school somewhere if she hadn't had a breaker bar shoved through her body and been left to bleed out in Patrick Tyneman's cellar. Oh yes...and she apparently tried to blow up the house with no bloody clue how to go about it..."

Jean, who was used to Dr. Blake's tendency to talk his way through every puzzle, tried to ignore the stream of consciousness coming from the table. Charlie, who had to watch uncomfortably as the police surgeon scowled and talked with his mouth full, cleared his throat.

"No other clues as to who might have been with her, Doc?"

"None at all, Charlie," Lucien answered, putting down his fork and staring thoughtfully at the officer. "No clear finger prints on the breaker bar. And the demo squad stamping all over the place ruined any possible footprints – my fault, unfortunately."

"Hardly," Jean broke in as she sat down with her own breakfast. "What were you supposed to do? Wander around looking for odd footprints when there was a bomb sitting right in the middle of the floor?"

"Would you mind reminding Matthew of that little fact?" Lucien said with a grin.

"Where's Mattie this morning?" Charlie asked, hoping to change up the subject a bit.

"Oh...didn't I tell you? She's taken some leave and gone home for a few days. Her mother is having some minor surgery, and she thought she ought to be there. She left yesterday afternoon," Jean answered.

"That's too bad. I was going to ask her opinion on something," Lucien said with a little frown.

"Yes, it's a pity her mother's surgery is inconveniently timed with your murder investigation," Jean replied sharply.

"Of course I'm sorry about her mother. But there's an aspect of this case I just can't wrap my head around."

"And you think Mattie can?"

"Well...would you have any idea why a young woman Mattie's age would be carrying the November 1959 issue of Man's Life in her kit bag next to her explosives?"

Both Charlie and Jean stared at him, speechless.

"It could have been for the cover picture of a buxom blonde grappling with an anaconda, or "thirty feet of writhing hell," as they put it, but I rather doubt it," he went on casually.

"Man's Life?!"

"Buxom blonde grappling with an anaconda!?"

Lucien grinned as Charlie and Jean spoke over one another. Sitting back in his chair, he tugged at the bottom of his waist coat and took a sip of tea.

"Not your typical reading material for a young woman, I'd have thought," Lucien observed somewhat smugly.

"I should hope not," Charlie muttered.

Jean rolled her eyes at them and began to clear the table with her usual quick efficiency. Turning back around to see Lucien's smirk and Charlie's wrinkled brow, she raised her eyebrow.

"I'm not sure what "typical reading material" might be for a young woman who was attempting to blow up a house," she said loftily, "but I doubt very much you're going to find instructions on explosives and mayhem in a recent copy of House Beautiful."

Lucien's mouth fell open as her words sunk in. Suddenly, he jumped up from the table, darted to Jean's side and hugged her. She let out a startled yelp and dropped a pan into the sink with a resounding splash.

"You're amazing!" he shouted in her ear. "C'mon, Charlie. We need to read a magazine!"

Charlie sighed and followed the very excited police surgeon from the kitchen. He grinned sympathetically as he left.

Jean just shook her head and smiled, humming as she finished the dishes.

* * *

The Chief Superintendent looked up with annoyance as a tattered magazine slapped down on his desk. His annoyance was exacerbated by the cheerful grin on his police surgeon's face.

"Do you know these are, Blake?" he asked, ignoring the magazine in favor of waving a pile of notes. "These are records of phone calls from Mr. Tyneman wondering what the _hell_ is going on and why can't he return to his home." Blake opened his mouth to respond, but Matthew scooped up another stack of notes. "And _these_ are from the Commissioner in Melbourne, who apparently has socialized frequently with the Tynemans in the last week, wondering what the _hell_ is going on and why the Tynemans can't return to their home."

"Matthew, I think we've found something-"

"If we do not come to some conclusion that permits the Tynemans to return home very soon, I'll be trying to find something," Matthew continued through gritted teeth. "A new, bloody, _job_!" He glared at the magazine with perplexed distaste. "I hope you didn't confiscate that off of Davies."

Charlie emitted a strangled, sputtering protest from his desk.

"This was found in the kit bag with the dynamite," Lucien informed Matthew.

"So what?"

"So...the cover story didn't provide any clues, but here..." Lucien flipped through the magazine to a fictional feature about the perils of mining in the Sierra Nevadas, "...here we get a step by step, utterly incorrect, guide on how to wire a detonator for a safe and effective explosion!"

"Blake, we already knew that she didn't know what she was doing..."

"Yes, but this gives us a little more insight into her thinking. She desperately wants to blow up Patrick Tyneman, but where is a young woman supposed to find out how to do such a thing, particularly if you don't want anyone knowing about it?"

Matthew just nodded as Blake got wound up and began gesturing.

"This says, at least, that whoever her accomplice and possible murderer is, it's someone who had no access to this information either. And that means, it was probably another woman!"

Matthew raised a skeptical eyebrow at this leap of logic and was relieved at the young Constable who cautiously approached his desk to interrupt.

"Boss? I've, uh, got a bloke here that says the murder weapon is his."

Blake spun around to stare at the Constable and looked over his shoulder to see a bulky man in rough work clothes standing in the center of the office, looking irritated and scared.

"Bring him over, Ned," Matthew ordered. "Maybe this will clear some things up. Do you suppose that his magazine?" he muttered as an aside to Blake.

"I'm thinking you lot have got my breaker bar," the man said with no preamble.

"I'm thinking you'd better tell me who you are and why you think that," Matthew replied.

"Oh...sorry. I'm Fred Ekherdt. And I was doing some work at the Tyneman place-"

"What sort of work?" Lucien broke in.

"Building work. Tyneman wanted part of his cellar partitioned off to store wine in." Mr. Ekherdt looked back and forth between Lucien and Blake, as if trying to figure out who the boss really was.

"You use a breaker bar for that work?" Matthew demanded.

"Sometimes ya gotta take things down before ya can put things up. I'd left my tools and was gonna come back the next day for work, but of course _that_ didn't happen. Then I heard that some bird had got herself speared with a breaker bar, of all things."

"Of all things," Lucien murmured sarcastically. Matthew glared at him and motioned for Ekherdt to continue.

"I know you lot gotta, you know, investigate, but I gotta make a living, and I need my breaker bar." With that, Ekherdt crossed his arms and looked expectantly at the Superintendent.

"My sympathies, Mr. Ekherdt," Matthew began in a voice that wasn't the least bit sympathtic, "but that breaker bar is evidence and evidence it will stay. If I were you, I'd buy a new breaker bar."

Ekherdt opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, Lucien snatched the magazine from Matthew's desk and thrust it towards the man.

"Does this look familiar, Mr. Ekherdt?"

Ekherdt drew his head back and looked at Lucien in confusion. He glanced at the cover and a look of familiarity crossed his face.

"Yeah...I think I have that issue at home. Why?"

"Are you sure its still at home?"

"Where else would it be," Ekherdt said with a chuckle. "Its home and hid proper so my boys don't get hold of it. Don't want 'em getting ideas about...um...wrestling with snakes..."

* * *

"So Matthew didn't think much of your two woman theory?" Jean asked as Lucien slumped in a chair at the table, swirling his third whiskey around the tumbler absently.

"No, he didn't. And the more I think about it, the less I think of it." Releasing a huge sigh, he took a sip and relished the burn in his throat.

"Hmmm. I suppose there isn't any way she acted alone, is there?"

"The three feet of breaker bar growing from her torso is a pretty good indicator that someone put it there." At her side eyed glare, he hastened to add: "But its not impossible that something just went horribly awry, I suppose."

"Just not very likely?"

"I just can't see it, Jean. That breaker bar would have to be driven into her body with tremendous force to go all the way through her."

"Just horrible," Jean said with a shudder. "So you think it was a man then?"

Lucien rubbed his forehead and grunted. Jean placed a cup of tea in front of him and surreptitiously removed his whiskey tumbler.

"Is it just you and I tonight, Lucien?" she asked. "For dinner, I mean," she clarified when she caught a twinkle in his eye at her question.

"I suppose. Charlie is still down at the station, going over crime scene inventory with one Mr. Eckherdt."

"The worker Patrick hired? I wonder what he was thinking."

"What do you mean?"

"If its the Eckherdt I'm thinking of, he's slow and barely competent." Lucien looked thoughtful. "And he's a real lad around the ladies," she added darkly.

"Oh…?" When Jean declined to add anything further, he shrugged and said, "he must work cheap."

"Cheaper than most around here. And he does have a contractor's license, although I'm not sure how he manages to hold onto it. His wife is a lovely woman who puts up with a lot for the sake of their three boys," Jean finished with a bite in her tone that Lucien had sense enough not to press on.

"Charlie and I took him over to the crime scene to identify his tools and tell us if there was anything out of place. Other than his breaker bar being gone, his ladder had been set up against the wall, and he was adamant that he'd left it laying on the floor."

"I'd be surprised if he could remember to tie his shoes," Jean commented. "How can he be so sure?"

"Well, there were some drag marks..."

Jean watched as his eyes sharpened and he put his hands in front of him, as if he was gripping a ladder.

"Now, a big bloke like him could easily pick up the ladder to move it without dragging it though. But a young woman-"

He broke off abruptly and stood, reaching out to grab Jean's hand.

"Could you come give me a hand for a moment," he asked as he began walking towards the door to the back garden.

"Seems you've already got it," she replied, but followed him out into the chill darkness of the garden. He began glancing around for something, getting frustrated as his quarry eluded him. "The ladder's in the shed, if that's what you're after."

"Ah! Thank you, Jean."

He darted over to the shed and wrenched the door open. As he peered into the darkness, he felt Jean reach beside him in the doorway. She retrieved a battered torch.

"Even on a sunny day it's impossible to see in here. It needs new batteries," she warned when he grinned delightedly at her. "I keep forgetting to change them out."

Lucien played the feeble light around the overly full interior, looking for the ladder. Fortunately, it was laying on the ground against a wall rather than stashed under a table.

"Do we really need this many clay pots?" he asked.

"Yes," Jean replied authoritatively as she followed him into the shed and shifted around a pile of burlap bags. "What do you need me to do?"

"Can you lift that ladder and prop it just there," he pointed to a clear area next to the door.

"It's too tall, Lucien."

"I just want to see how you'd do it."

She looked at him suspiciously then gave him a little push so she could move next to the ladder.

"Budge up," she said, rolling her eyes when he barely moved far enough for her to squat down and grasp the ladder. He continued to hover as she levered it up and, grunting a bit with the effort, hauled it towards the wall he'd indicated before.

"I'd have worn something a bit more appropriate if I had know we were going to do some construction tonight," she complained.

Lucien ran his eyes over her blue skirt and cardigan draped shoulders before reaching out to take the ladder from her.

"You look lovely," he said absently as he fixed his eyes on the drag marks left by the ladder in the dirt. Jean was a bit taller and probably stronger than the young woman in the Tyneman's basement, and even she had difficulty with the awkward, wooden ladder.

"Well, thank you," Jean replied, flushing a bit. "Are we done?"

"Hmmm? Done? Oh yes, thanks..."

Jean left him to his ruminations and went back in the house to dust off her skirt and scrub up her hands. He followed in a few minutes – not nearly enough time in her opinion to have put the ladder back properly – and leaned against the sink, watching as she cleaned under her fingernails.

"I need to go back to the crime scene. Something's not fitting right."

"Tonight?"

"No. No...tomorrow will be soon enough." He eyed Jean speculatively until she tired of it and turned to look him expectantly in the face.

"Are you busy tomorrow, Jean?"

"I don't think so, other than play practice tomorrow evening. Why?"

"I may need your help figuring out how that poor woman might have done herself in."


	3. Chapter 3

Break a Leg

Dr. Lucien Blake stole the occasional glance at his housekeeper in the passenger seat as he drove them to the Tyneman's home and had to admit that he'd earned that rather exasperated, tight lipped expression. He hadn't thought his suggestion that she wear trousers to the crime scene to be such an unreasonable one, but when she flatly declined, he probably shouldn't have persisted. She'd gotten entirely the wrong idea.

Well, maybe not _entirely_ the wrong idea. There might have been a slight puerile curiosity involved in the request, as the thought had crossed his mind more than once that Jean Beezley would look stunning in a pair of trousers.

But he was mainly concerned with her safety and the possibility that she might scale a ladder in the Tyneman's basement. And this concern, expressed poorly he'd admit, did not impress her at all. It was left very much in doubt if she had any intention of assisting in the investigation to the extent of climbing a ladder, but if she did, it wouldn't be the first time a farm wife had done so in a skirt, and she'd thank him to keep his opinions about her wardrobe to himself.

At that point, he shut up and called the station to ask if Charlie could meet them there. Another set of eyes would be helpful.

* * *

"Do you really think that young woman might have killed herself?" Jean asked suddenly, breaking the silence in the car.

"Accidentally, yes. I don't know just how yet, but I can't find any other solution," he replied solemnly.

A troubled look crossed Jean's face and they continued in silence until they were greeted by Charlie.

"What are we looking for, Doc?" he asked as he unlocked the door and ushered them inside.

"I'm not sure, Charlie. Some sort of way that she might have died that fits the evidence."

"Someone must have pushed that spike through her...mind the creosote, Mrs. Beezley."

"Thank you, Charlie," she replied, stepping gingerly down the stairs, grateful she'd not worn her best shoes.

"There's been nothing that suggests another person down here, Charlie. So let's look at some other possibilities..."

Charlie switched on the portable lights and they all stood for a moment, silently contemplating the large bloodstain on the cellar floor.

"Let's assume for a moment that the young woman was acting on her own, attempting to blow up the Tyneman's house, and likely, the Tynemans..." Lucien began.

Charlie could think of several other options that made sense, all of which involved a second person they just hadn't found evidence of yet. With a glance at Jean, who had just made a discrete sign of the cross, he cleared his throat.

"What if the second person came along specifically to murder the girl? That would explain why there was no chance of the bomb working – it was never meant to."

"Then why use the breaker bar?" Lucien replied. "Why take a chance that you'll find something in the cellar that would work for a premeditated murder?"

Charlie shrugged as Lucien made his way over to the where the tools had been when they investigated the scene with Ekherdt.

"Maybe they knew there would be tools here. Maybe we should take another look at Ekherdt. He _did_ have a copy of the magazine at home-maybe he had an extra copy..."

"We're getting into the weeds a bit with that one, Charlie. But I'll keep it in mind, if nothing else pans out."

Charlie grimaced and caught Jean's sympathetic smirk.

"The breaker bar was just...here, according to Ekherdt," Lucien muttered, "leaning against the box of masonry tools, between the box and the wall. So the sharper end might have been sticking out, over the box..."

"Why in the world would someone hurl themselves on a spike while committing a crime?" Jean asked skeptically.

"Why indeed..." Lucien mused, his eyes roaming purposefully around the cellar. "And she didn't die right next to the tool box. Charlie, if you were planning to blow up the house, where would you put the explosives?"

"Um...next to a load bearing wall, I suppose."

"Assume you're a young woman..." Charlie immediately rolled his eyes and sighed, "...who doesn't know anything about explosives other than what she reads in a men's adventure magazine. Where do you think she might believe the explosives would be most effective."

"I dunno, Doc," Charlie replied a little defensively.

"How about near the ceiling?" Jean asked. "She might think that the closer the bomb was to the main part of the house, the more damage it would do."

Lucien's eyes lit up and he immediately went over to the ladder that was propped against the wall. They all looked up at the ceiling beam that ran the length of the cellar.

"And that would be why you might need to haul a heavy ladder over to the wall," Lucien said triumphantly.

"But the detonator was on the ground, Doc."

"Ah, but it wasn't meant to be! Something happened up there," he said as he pointed to the beam, "and the detonator turned up here," he concluded, swinging around to point past the bloodstain on the floor."

"And the girl turned up dead," Jean reminded him.

"Yes...yes...I haven't gotten there yet."

Charlie looked from where the box of tools had been, to the bloodstain, to where the detonator had been, and then up to the beam.

"I don't think there's anyway to get there, Doc."

"Don't lose heart, Charlie. There's an answer here. We just can't see it yet."

"Do you think she climbed the ladder and tried to crawl out over the beam?" Jean asked, staring up in disbelief.

"Possibly. She might not have come with that plan, but when she saw the ladder, it might have seemed like an opportunity she couldn't miss."

"One way to find out, I suppose," Jean said. "Climb up and see if she could have done it."

"Could you crawl out on that beam, Charlie," Lucien asked.

"Me? Yeah, probably. Be a tight squeeze between the beam and the ceiling though."

"You're a big bloke," Lucien acknowledged. "I could do it a bit easier, but it would still be difficult, especially if I had a bag of explosives around my neck and was shoving a detonator along."

Jean tapped her foot as they discussed the possibility, then huffed an exasperated sigh.

"Oh for heaven's sake, I'll check," she said impatiently, "but only if you steady the ladder."

"I don't know if-" Charlie began.

"And I'm not going to crawl out on that beam," she informed them.

"I wouldn't ask you to do that," Lucien assured her, somewhat indignantly. "You don't need to go up at all- I can do it."

"But I'll be able to tell if a young woman a bit shorter than me could get on that beam and start crawling along it."

"Yes, but-"

"Charlie, you steady the ladder," she ordered, placing her foot on the first rung.

Charlie looked helplessly at Lucien, who shrugged and motioned for him to grab the bottom of the ladder. Gingerly, Charlie placed his hands on the sides, surrounding Jean as she prepared to go up. She gave him a warning look that he had no trouble interpreting, and he dropped his eyes down to the floor.

Lucien watched uneasily as Jean began to carefully ascend the ladder.

"Perhaps you ought to come back down, Jean," he suggested.

"I'm halfway up now," she informed him in a tone that brooked no argument. "Be quiet and let me concentrate!"

He stepped a little closer to the wall and watched as she made her way up the ladder and gripped the next to the top rung. When she reached out to grasp the beam, his heart flew into his mouth.

"Jean! Be careful!"

Jean glared down at him. Charlie gripped the ladder even more firmly as a bead of sweat rolled down his head.

"If you don't want me to fall, you might stop shouting at me!" She peered out across the beam.

"What do you see?"

"It's clean out as far as I can see. No dust."

"Someone was definitely crawling out on it?" he asked a bit triumphantly.

"Either that or they send the maid down here regularly to tidy up," she replied tartly.

Charlie snickered. Lucien smirked as he watched Jean lean a bit further out. How in the world she kept the bottom of her skirt from gaping open as she did, he didn't know. As she narrowed her eyes and leaned out a bit further though, he began to get nervous.

"That's far enough, Jean!"

"I could crawl out onto this beam, if I were crazy enough. Or desperate enough. And I can see something that's off," she replied, ignoring his command. "It looks like the wood on the beam has been damaged a bit on the edges. You can see where it's been broken off."

"Where, Jean," Lucien demanded. "Keep that ladder steady, Charlie," he ordered as he moved away from the wall to stand under the beam. "Tell me when I'm under the spot."

"A bit further on...there," she guided him. "You're right under it."

Lucien looked up at the beam and then down at the floor. He was about four feet from the large bloodstain, and standing by some bloody smears.

"Dear God, she fell," he muttered. "She fell and likely hit her head," he repeated louder so Charlie and Jean could hear. "Here's the spot where her head must have landed."

"That's not near the breaker bar though, Doc," Charlie replied, turning his head to see where Lucien was standing. His motion made the ladder shimmy and Jean gave an angry yelp. Apologizing profusely, Charlie turned back to the ladder.

"No, its not," Lucien acknowledged with a frown, beginning to pace between the blood smear and where the tool box had been. "She couldn't have fallen on the breaker bar from the beam."

"Shall I just stay up here, then?" Jean demanded irritably.

"Of course not," Lucien replied, hurrying back over by the wall. "Come on down... _carefully_ , please. Steady that ladder, Charlie."

They both watched as Jean began descending the ladder. She looked down to see them staring up at her and cleared her throat with an angry stare. Charlie immediately shifted his eyes back down to the floor. Lucien just grinned at her for a moment before looking off to the side. She made short work of returning to the floor and was helped off the bottom rung by a somewhat flustered police sergeant.

"Well," she said, dusting off her skirt and blouse, "that was exciting. Did it help?"

"Immensely," Lucien assured her before darting back over to the smears and looking all around the cellar.

"She tipped off the beam and landed on her back here. Maybe she was knocked unconscious for a bit, or maybe got the wind knocked out of her. There was a fracture on the back of her skull, but Dr. Harvey and I thought she must have gotten it in a struggle with whomever ran her through. As the breaker bar was clearly the cause of death, we didn't pay much attention to it."

"So how did she wind up impaled?" Charlie asked wonderingly. "So she fell. So what? Could it have killed her and someone stabbed her with the breaker bar to throw us off the trail?"

"I don't think there was anyone else here, Charlie," Lucien responded. "When you get a nasty knock on the head, you can get very dizzy, very disoriented."

Lucien abruptly flopped down onto the floor, next to the smears.

"Oh, do you _have_ to roll around on that filthy floor in your suit?" Jean demanded.

Lucien raised up his head to look at her. "Well, if you'd like to roll around instead. Or I could take my suit off, I suppose."

Not liking either option, Charlie's eyes widened anxiously at this exchange.

"I'm not getting down on that floor," Jean snapped. "As far as the other is concerned, wait 'til I'm gone then please yourself."

Lucien opened his mouth to say something he'd most certainly regret about her presence being necessary if there was going to be any pleasing going on, then he very wisely decided this was neither the time nor place. Clearing his throat, he gave them both a disgruntled look and laid his head back down.

"I've fallen from the beam and I don't know exactly what happened. So I get to my feet and start to stagger around in confusion." Lucien levered himself up shakily and began to meander. "I cross the floor towards the stairs because it would make sense to leave and get help." He staggered between Jean and Charlie, making them jump out of the way. Charlie instinctively stuck out a hand to steady Lucien, but was waved irritably away.

"Get out of it, Charlie. Now, as I'm wandering, I remember something important-probably the bomb, and I turn too quickly and lose my footing. Come here a moment, Charlie," he ordered, grabbing the man's sleeve.

Lucien crouched down where Ekherdt's toolbox had been, holding out his arm in approximation of the breaker bar. He directed Charlie to pretend to turn too quickly and lose his balance. As Charlie did so, he rammed the doctor's fist with his hip.

"Ouch!"

"Right! Sorry, Charlie. She could have fallen on the breaker bar. The initial entry was low in her abdomen."

"And that would have killed her?" Jean asked in fascination. "I thought the bar went all the way through her. Would that have been enough?"

"No it wouldn't," Lucien replied. He took Charlie's shoulder and pulled him down towards his fist. "It would have penetrated some, perhaps as much as four or five inches, but if she'd gotten help, it wouldn't have killed her. It missed the abdominal aorta by an inch."

"She didn't die next to the tool box anyway," Charlie said, backing away from Lucien's fist and gesturing towards the large blood spot. "That's at least three or four feet away."

"That's right, but she had a bad head wound and was in shock from the stabbing. In a panic, she might have grabbed the breaker bar and tried to head for the stairs. Instead, her feet got tangled up again here..." Lucien pretended to hold a breaker bar to his lower abdomen and staggered over to the large blood spot. "And then she fell again. This time, with the bar already penetrating, her body weight and gravity did the rest."

"Dear God," Jean murmured.

Lucien turned to see Charlie looking very pale and Jean covering her mouth with her hand in distress.

"Do you really think that's what happened, Doc?" Charlie asked quietly.

"It certainly could have, Charlie. The bar went through her small intestines and liver before taking the end off of her lung and emerging near the middle of her spine. She would have bled out in minutes. The detonator had fallen from the beam over there and she still had the trip wire in her hand from pushing it along the beam."

"That poor girl," Jean said quietly. "She couldn't have been in her right mind in the first place."

"We may never know, Jean," Lucien said gently. "We may know the circumstances of her death, but we still have no idea who she was or why she tried to blow up Patrick."

"Maybe it wasn't Patrick she wanted to blow up," Jean suggested.

"Someone from the staff, maybe?" Charlie asked.

"Or Susan," Lucien added thoughtfully.

They stood quietly for a moment in thought, then Lucien clapped his hands and let out a breath.

"Right then. I've got to go back to the morgue to double check a few things. Then I'll make my report to the Chief Superintendent." He bounded for the stairs, calling over his shoulder: "Charlie, can you drop Jean back off at the house?"

"So that's the thanks I get," Jean huffed, throwing Charlie an exasperated look.

"Ah...well..he's, um..."

"Oh, I know exactly how he is," she said with a slight smirk. "He'll thank me later, if he knows what's good for him." Charlie nodded and grinned back. "Let's get going, Charlie, shall we? I've got rehearsal in a bit."


	4. Chapter 4

The Show Must Go On

"…so it's death by misadventure in the commission of a crime," Dr. Blake informed a patently skeptical Chief Superintendent. Ignoring Matthew's steepled eyebrow, Lucien placed the final Police Surgeon's Report gently on his desk.

"You're joking," Matthew said flatly.

"I wish I were," Lucien replied sadly. "Although if I was wrong, which I'm not, it would imply a second person involved. And that would make the investigation a lot more tangled."

"It's quite tangled enough," Matthew grunted, tapping his fingers against the file on his desk. "Well...now I get to inform Patrick Tyneman that the dead woman in his basement accidentally did her own self in in an ineffectual attempt to murder everyone there."

"I'm not convinced she was hoping to murder everyone," Lucien said. He'd have continued, but for Matthew's sudden baleful glare.

"Not another bloody word," he barked.

"You might want to hold off telling the Tynemans they can come home is all," Lucien said, raising his hands defensively. "We still don't know who she is or why she was there."

"She was there to blow up the bloody house! And we'll keep on circulating her picture. Someone will spill to knowing her eventually."

"Maybe..."

Matthew just shook his head and glared at Lucien. He tapped a pile of files on the corner of his desk.

"See these, Blake? These are open cases. That would be cases we haven't solved yet. There's several petty thefts, a case of arson, a nasty beating, and someones gone and painted a mustache on the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the front garden of the rectory at St. Alipius..." He paused while Lucien had a good snicker at the last one. "The murder case in Patrick Tynman's basement has been solved and I've got other work to do. Go worry your bone someplace else and let me get to it!"

"Fine...fine," Lucien surrendered. "Would you like me to call Patrick, as you're so busy?"

The helpful, innocent expression on Lucien's face didn't fool Matthew for a moment.

"Abso-bloody-lutely _not_!" he growled as he picked up the phone.

* * *

"So the Tynemans will be coming home soon?"

"Likely so," Lucien replied, watching Jean as she gracefully moved through the sunroom with her dibbler and extra pot. "Er...that won't mess things about will it? With the play?"

"You wouldn't think so at this point, but who knows," she replied with an irritable shrug. After a moment's more puttering, she suddenly set down the dibbler and turned to look at him. "You're not trying to keep the Tynemans in Melbourne for longer than needs be?"

"Ah...well, for their safety...um, it's more like...I'm sure they're better off there for awhile..."

"You are, aren't you? You're trying to keep them out of Ballarat!"

"What would it hurt them to stay in Melbourne for a bit, eh?" he replied weakly. "Not that I have any say in it."

"Lucien Blake!"

"Now, Jean...it was for their safety. Until we knew there wasn't another person out there with murdering the Tynemans on his mind, it was best they stay away."

"But you haven't thought there was another person for the better part of a week!"

Lucien looked hopefully in the direction of the phone, which declined to to ring and get him out of this conversation. Jean glared at him in confused disapproval before spinning away from him and plunging the dibbler rather viciously into the pot of Oxalis the sewing circle had given her last St. Patrick's Day. Lucien winced and tried to explain.

"It seemed like a winner all around, Jean. The Tynemans were safe and out of the way so we could investigate, and...coincidentally...it allowed for some...um, _variety_ in casting-"

"I _cannot_ believe I'm hearing this," Jean said to the bulb she had lifted from the original pot.

"Well, I...Right. I'll just be getting on to my office, get ready for surgery."

Surgery wasn't for another three hours. Head down, Lucien retreated towards the sitting room until Jean's voice stopped him.

"Lucien, you know not telling the Tynemans they could come home was wrong…"

He turned to see her gazing at him seriously and tried to school his face to show a bit of remorse. Apparently, he wasn't entirely successful as a little smirk formed on her lips.

"...but I think it's the nicest thing anyone's done for me in _quite_ some time."

He broke out in a delighted grin and nodded at her. She smiled back and turned around to her plants again.

"It's still wrong, though."

"Very wrong," he agreed cheerfully. "I'll have to get round to repenting for that one of these days." Her chuckle broadened his smile.

"You're a horrible influence on me," she informed him as he left.

"Oh, Jean, if only," he mumbled to himself in relief as he headed for the whiskey decanter for a small nip.

* * *

Charlie had just dropped his eyelids for a moments rest when Dr. Blake blew into the station at a high rate of speed and demanded a look at the detonator.

"Wha? What's this?" He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. "Why do you need to see the detonator?"

"I need to see what it was set for," Lucien replied agitatedly.

"Why?" Charlie asked again, leaning forward a bit to see if he could smell whiskey.

"Will you just _find_ the bloody thing?"

Charlie looked at him doubtfully, then looked quickly over at the Chief Super's desk. Unfortunately, the Boss was not sitting in his chair, glaring at them.

"I thought the case was closed," Charlie said slowly, hoping to stall long enough for the Boss to return and deal with the good doctor.

"The murder part of its been solved, Charlie, but the case isn't closed until we have an identification for that young woman."

"And the detonator will tell you that?"

Lucien took a deep breath and did a slow ten count. Charlie watched him warily, as if he might make a break for the evidence locker on his own.

"Do you know how the timer on one of those works, Charlie?"

"No. Why would I? I don't make a habit of messing about with explosives."

"Very good. I don't recommend you take it up. The timer on our detonator is a simple one, Charlie. A young woman who had ever used a kitchen timer could figure it out." Lucien considered for a moment. "You've done some baking yourself."

"A bit," Charlie replied defensively.

"So you know how it works."

"Yeah. You figure out how many minutes or hours you're going to need and you set the dial for that many."

"Then when it goes off, your cobbler is done," Lucien said with a grin, waving his arms around dramatically. "And for the detonator, when it goes off, the explosives are triggered. BOOM! No cobbler." Charlie rolled his eyes. "I need to see what it was set for."

"Why?" Charlie asked again with a touch of desperation. "What difference does it make? It was never going to go BOOM."

"Ah, but she didn't know that! If she set it for, say twenty minutes, then she was probably just intending to give herself enough time to get away from it. But if she set it for hours, maybe she had a specific reason for it to go off at that time."

Charlie just stared at him for a moment before sighing deeply and getting up from his chair.

"Wait here," he ordered. "I'll be right back with it."

Lucien smiled triumphantly and settled into Charlie's empty chair. He was paging idly through the paperwork on an open arson case when Charlie returned, looking around furtively. He snatched the file away from Lucien with an exasperated grunt and set the detonator down. Lucien immediately picked it up and examined the timer closely.

"Well?" Charlie demanded impatiently. "Please hurry with that, Doc. I need to get it back before...well, before."

"It's been set for fourteen hours," Lucien said in a puzzled tone. "Why would she want it going off the next day-" His head snapped up. "Charlie?"

"Yeah, Doc?"

"When we were informing Patrick that they needed to go to Melbourne for safety on that night, do you remember why he protested so much?"

"Something about business the following day, I think. I didn't pay much attention; it was the Boss he was yelling at," the sergeant admitted.

"Thanks for this, Charlie," Lucien said, giving the detonator a friendly pat. He sprung out of the chair and rounded the desk. "I'll see you at home." Halfway to the door, he stopped and turned around. "You don't happen to know which hotel the Tynemans are staying in?"

* * *

Lucien glanced quickly down the hall to make sure Jean was occupied in the kitchen before digging the scraps of phone messages that he'd found in Matthew's waste bin out of his pocket. Picking up the phone, he dialed the number.

"Ah...yes. This is Dr. Blake with the Ballarat Police," he said in an official tone to the concierge. "I'm trying to reach the Tynemans. Have they checked out yet?"

"Just a moment, Doctor...they haven't yet. Shall I put you through?"

"That would be very helpful."

"Hold the line."

Lucien listened to the burr of the switchboard until the sudden thud of the phone being engaged and the huffing sound of Patrick's breathing filled his ear.

"Yes?" Patrick barked.

"Patrick. It's Lucien."

"What the bloody hell do _you_ want?"

"I just have a quick question, Patrick. Clearing up some loose ends and trying to identify that young woman."

"We're packing to come home. Can't this wait until tomorrow," Patrick groused.

"Just a quick question," Lucien assured him soothingly. "What were you going to be missing the day after the incident?"

"Why?"

"Nothing much. Just a mater of timing. Were you going to be out of town?"

"I had a business meeting in Bendigo," Patrick snapped.

"An early meeting?"

"Some of us get up and get things done, Blake."

"Of course. You have a lot of early morning meetings?"

"When I need to...what is this about?"

"I just need to know when you would have left the house."

"I'd have been out by 7am, most likely. Why?"

"Hmmm," Lucien mused, listening to Patrick's breathing increase in agitation. "A breakfast meeting, then."

"Is that all, Blake?" Patrick demanded after a moment of strained silence.

"Just one more thing. Do you know if Susan was planning on being home that morning?"

"I don't keep her bloody calendar!"

"Could you ask?"

"If it'll get you off the bloody line….Susan!" Susan's muffled voice echoed down the line as Patrick asked her about her plans. "She doesn't think she had anything scheduled. Are we done?"

"Of course. Thank you, Patr-" Lucien jerked his head back and pulled the phone from his ear as Patrick slammed down his receiver. He hung up gently with a little smile.

"What was that about?" Jean asked from behind him.

Lucien turned around quickly and stepped in front of the hall table as if he could hide that he'd just been on the phone. Jean watched him suspiciously as she dried her hands in a dishtowel.

"Oh..." he said, gesturing casually at the phone, "just had a few questions for Patrick." At her stern glare, he hastened to add: "About the case. I just needed some information from him."

"That's all?" At his nod and smile, she tipped her head and gave him a skeptical look.

"They were packing to come home when I called them. Patrick was less than happy to be interrupted."

Jean's hands tightened in the dishtowel and twisted it around. She took a breath and let out a resigned sigh.

"I can imagine they'll be glad to get back home."

Lucien watched the flicker of disappointment on her face and reached out to gently unwrap the towel from her hands. Her eyebrow flew up as he squeezed them gently and she stepped back a bit, pulling her hands from his. But not before giving them a gentle squeeze back.

"Is that cobbler I smell?" Lucien asked excitedly as he followed her back towards the kitchen.

* * *

"All I'm asking is that you cast the net a little wider, Matthew. Just send the photograph to police in larger towns in New South Wales and South Australia." As Matthew opened his mouth to object, Lucien continued: "She's missing from somewhere, probably a psychiatric unit, and she'll have been reported missing. If she's not from Victoria, she has to be from _somewhere._ "

"Blake, if I do this, will you back off?"

"Absolutely."

"Then it's a good thing I've already done it. And you'll stop pestering the sergeant to show you evidence you haven't gone through channels to request? So he can _remain_ a sergeant?"

"Ah...well..."

Matthew's uncompromising glare warned Lucien to be cautious. However, he wasn't very good at that.

"I learned something from that detonator, Matthew." Matthew's scowl grew darker. "It was set to go off sometime the following morning, _after_ Patrick would be gone off to Bendigo for a business meeting. It's entirely possible that he wasn't the target at all."

"Then who, Blake? According to you, half of Ballarat wants to get rid of Patrick-"

"I wouldn't say _half_..."

"And now you say it wasn't him after all. Your motor's missing a wheel and is going round in circles!"

"I think it might have been Susan," he said quietly.

Matthew groaned and squeezed his temples.

"If we can find out who this woman is, I think we'll be able to find out exactly what her motive and who her target is. Once we find that out, we can be sure the Tynemens will be safe."

"Fine. Let me do my job, Blake," Matthew dismissed him. Lucien got up to leave but stopped when Matthew looked up and glared at him. "And you stay _out_ of my bloody waste bin or I'll have you."

Lucien beat a hasty retreat, dropping Charlie a wink as he left.

* * *

Matthew Lawson didn't do things by halves and he didn't stop at the two nearest states. The Queensland Police Forces in Brisbane were equally efficient and the answer they were looking for came back within five days.

"Dr. Blake's Residence," Jean said crisply as she answered the phone.

"It's Matthew, Jean. Is he there?"

"Yes. Hang on, I'll get him."

Jean set the phone down on its side and went through to the Doctor's office. Lucien was staring unseeingly at a book on nephrology. He looked up gratefully at her entrance.

"Chief Superintendent on the line for you," she informed him. "Interesting reading?"

"Riveting," he replied, slamming the book shut with gusto and getting up quickly. "Ah...Matthew...how did he sound? Is he a bit..."

"Furious with you? Not this time, I don't think," she said with a smile.

Lucien grinned back and bounded out to the phone.

"What can I do for you, Matthew?"

"You can leave me alone about this Tyneman case. I've got a name to go with the photo."

"Excellent! Who is she?"

"Her name is Janice Fraeham. She was a patient at the Brisbane Mental Hospital. Apparently, she bunked off last month."

"Any information on her family?"

"Her brother, Albert Fraeham, lives in Brisbane and was the one who had her committed last year. They didn't tell me for what."

"Do you have a number for Mr. Fraeham?"

Matthew read off a number on the Brisbane exchange. "Now, don't go calling him right off, Blake. Give the Brisbane chaps a chance to make a home call and let him know about his sister."

"Of course...of course. I'll hold off until tomorrow."

"Make it the day after. There's no rush now."

Lucien didn't argue and Matthew rang off after saying the case was now closed. He put the phone back into the cradle and stared at the front door blankly. Jean, who had been quietly listening to Lucien's side of the call, watched him anxiously.

"Lucien? They found out who she was?" she finally asked.

Lucien jerked his head around and looked as if he was seeing through her. Then he blinked and gave her a gentle smile.

"They did. A Janet Fraeham from Brisbane."

"Whatever was she doing here in Ballarat?"

"That's the question, Jean. Do you know of any Fraehams in the area at all?"

"I don't claim to know everybody, but that name doesn't ring a bell," she replied, wishing she could say otherwise.

"Well, perhaps her brother can clear things up when I talk to him."

"Well, I hope so," she said gently. "You've really let this get under your skin."

"Don't I always?"

"Yes, you do." She looked at him speculatively. "Any chance you could give me lift to rehearsal? We're going off book tonight."

"Already? Well done!"

Jean smiled to herself as his excitement for her pushed the disturbing death of Janice Fraeham aside for the moment.

* * *

"I'm so very sorry for your loss, Mr. Fraeham. And I'm sorry I need to ask you some questions," Lucien said comfortingly. The man on the other end took a shaky breath.

"S'all right. You lot have to do your job. Janice...well, I don't know what to say about her."

"Is your family from Brisbane?"

"Naw, just me and mine. I joined the Army for a few years and mustered out up here. Met my sweetheart, and just stayed. Janice came to stay with us a few years ago," he replied in a sad voice.

"Came from where?"

"She lived with our sister in Bendigo. That's where we're from. But Laura couldn't deal with her anymore and so we said she could come stay with us." He chuckled sadly. "Turns out we couldn't handle her either."

"Your sister...Laura...does she still live in Bendigo?"

"Yeah." There was silence down the line for a moment. "Look...I don't want you to think Janice was a bad person. She just...she just wasn't right in her head all the time."

"No one thinks that," Lucien assured him, setting aside the Tynemans. "We're just trying to determine why she attempted to kill the couple here in Ballarat."

"I couldn't tell ya," he answered with a hint of desperation in his voice, "no one could figure out what was in her head. She lived in her own world, didn't understand how things really worked in this one."

"Did she have delusions, hear voices, that sort of thing?"

"Sometimes. But mostly...well, when she was a kid, it was like she just didn't know real from not. And it only got worse the older she got. I couldn't even begin to tell you what went on in her mind. And neither could those bloody doctors in that...that place we had to put her."

"Was she dangerous?"

"To herself, mostly. But we have kids. And she loved them, but didn't understand that they weren't safe on her little excursions and what not. We had to commit her when she took our youngest boy and a neighbor kid on a three day walkabout to find some sort of government project she was raving about. Something about rays in her head. They were going to charge her with kidnapping if we didn't put her away.!"

"Oh dear," Lucien commiserated. "She really didn't have a good grasp on reality."

"Naw. But she could escape out of any bloody cage. She was smart, you know."

"Was she still in contact with your sister?"

"Oh yeah. Laura would send her notes and Janice would send back these huge letters with drawings and diagrams and nonsense from one end to the other. She'd have probably stayed with Laura, but she cost her a job and Laura was at her wits end."

"You've been very helpful, Mr. Fraeham. Has your sister been informed yet?"

"Naw. Haven't brought myself to do it yet. It feels like we let her down, didn't take good enough care."

"If you would like, we could inform her officially as a next of kin."

"Would ya? Yeah. Then we can talk once, you know, the shock and all is past."

"Of course. What is your sister's name and direction?"

* * *

Lucien pulled up outside a trim, little duplex on the outskirts of Bendigo proper and stared at the front door of Laura Derrick's home. Jean watched him from the passenger seat.

"You know, Matthew would have called the Bendigo Station for an officer to do this," she said quietly. "You didn't have to."

"I do, actually," he said to the windscreen before turning to Jean and giving her a little smile. "I think she'll speak more freely to a police surgeon and his...um, his-"

"Grief Notification Assistant?" she offered.

He nodded, impressed, and stopped wondering if he should have brought Mattie instead.

"Let's get this over with, then," Jean said quietly but firmly.

* * *

Laura Derrick was an older copy of her sister. Lucien watched her as she sat down unseeingly on the settee in her tiny sitting room, silent behind her hand over her mouth, at the news of her sister's death.

"She died in Ballarat? In Patrick Tyneman's house?" she whispered to the room at large. "Oh my Dear God."

"Do you know the Tynemans?" Lucien inquired gently.

"I know...I knew Patrick once. She tried to _kill_ them?" she demanded. "How could that happen?"

"We'd like to know that as well."

Jean came in from the kitchen with a cup of strong tea and placed it into Mrs. Derrick's hands. The cup rattled alarmingly on the saucer.

"I put in three sugars, Mrs. Derrick," she said soothingly. "You've had a horrible shock. Please try to drink some."

The distressed woman lifted the cup to her lips and stared through them. Lucien leaned forward on his chair, watching carefully for signs of further distress. The tea seemed to calm her somewhat and she closed her eyes as the steam curled into her face.

"How did she die?"

"Ah...well, she-"

"She fell," Jean interjected, placing her hand on Mrs. Derrick's arm.

"Yes," Lucien agreed. "She fell trying to plant a bomb near the ceiling of the Tyneman's basement."

"A bomb? She tried to..."

Jean and Lucien glanced at each other as Mrs. Derrick trailed off and shook her head.

"It would be something dramatic like that," she murmured. "Nothing was ever simple for our Janice." Her face suddenly twisted in pain and tears began to trickled from her eyes. "It's my fault. It's all my fault."

"Of course it's not your fault," Lucien argued. "How could you know what she was going to do?"

"I didn't _hide_ it well enough," she said, sobbing. "She knew about Patrick, and I knew that she knew."

"What about Patrick?" Lucien asked softly.

"We had a brief- a _very_ brief – affair after my husband left me. I was a clerk typist at the paper mill here in Ballarat, where he did a lot of business. I was lonely and frustrated with keeping Janice and, well, just miserable. We'd been married twelve years! Twelve years and he just walked away from me, from us."

"And Patrick?"

"He took me out for a drink once. It kind of went from there." She looked pleadingly at them through her tears. "I didn't know he was married at first. When I found out, it wasn't too hard for me when he quit coming around. It didn't feel right."

Jean patted her shoulder and looked at Lucien with an expression that didn't bode well for Patrick Tyneman.

"Did Janice ever meet Patrick?"

"No. I tried to make sure of that. She knew about him though; she was clever." A sudden shudder went through her and her sobbing intensified. "Oh God, when he threw me over, I remember, she talked me into making biscuits with her one night. And she spun this elaborate dream where Patrick left his wife and swooped in and took me off to some beautiful place and she was able to go to University and, oh, the whole thing was ridiculous and I _told_ her so! No one leaves a wife for someone like me."

Lucien opened his mouth to reassure her otherwise, then shut it again when he couldn't come up with any way to phrase it that wouldn't come across wrong. Jean gave him a warning look and took the unfinished tea from Mrs. Derrick's hands.

"Your sister must have wanted for you to be happy," Jean said, holding the woman's hands in hers. "She just didn't have a good grasp on how to do that."

"She didn't have a good grasp on anything. She probably thought, if she killed his wife, he would come back to me. It's been _years_ since he's done anything more than nod at me, if he even sees me at all."

"Now, now...you're not to blame for any of this, Mrs. Derrick..." Lucien began. He stopped when Mrs. Derrick threw herself into Jean's arms and sobbed. Jean held her and let her cry it out, looking over her head at Lucien, who watched them both with sad eyes.

* * *

Lucien looked up from his paper and turned down the radio when Jean walked into the sitting room and sat down with a contemplative look.

"Practice go alright?" he asked.

"Mmmm...yes. Mostly." She gazed out towards the back garden for a moment, then added casually: "Susan was there."

Lucien ruffled his paper agitatedly and grunted. Jean glanced at him with a smile.

"It was good to see her again. She said she hadn't had a chance to come by before, getting settled back in at home, and all."

"Just dropped by for a visit, did she?"

"Yes, actually. She apparently really missed it."

Giving up on folding his paper properly, Lucien chucked it to one side and looked inquisitively at Jean.

"And?" he asked when she said nothing more.

"And what? She came by, everyone said they were glad to see her, she watched the rehearsal." Jean bit her lip and looked at the floor, then back up at Lucien. "I, um, offered to turn the lead over to her."

"You did what?" Lucien sputtered.

"She's been through a lot lately, Lucien."

"Jean, you _earned_ that role!"

"Well, yes, with a little outside interference," she replied with a little glare. "I thought I should offer, anyway. She was the target of a murder due to her philandering jackass of a husband who needs to be more careful that the objects of his little affairs don't have mentally unbalanced sisters. Who wouldn't need a bit of cheering up after all that?"

Lucien just stared at her with his mouth open.

"Anyway, she politely declined and that was the end of. I'm still Eliza Doolittle and I can't seem to get Act two scene four down properly with my accent."

"Perhaps you just need to channel your inner street urchin a bit more..." he joked, ducking as she flung a throw pillow at him.

"I'll street urchin you," she snapped, trying to hide an answering smile and brandishing another pillow.

Mattie stood at the doorway of the sitting room and watched Jean laugh and throw her second pillow, which Lucien caught and threw back at her.

"What did I miss?" she asked with a grin.


End file.
